Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose

A reader who works with victims of domestic violence writes:
After speaking with my boss, she and I agree that FA and HAES could have a big role to play in our self-care initiatives. While economic issues and pure justified fear are the leading reasons women stay in violent relationships, self-esteem is way up there. I [...]

Filed under: Fat, Feminism, Health at Every Size, Self-Image | 31 Comments »

Go read her latest entry on common misunderstandings about HAES.
Everyone is limited, physically or mentally, to a certain extent. HAES must work within those limitations. And because humans come in all shades of disease — from Crohn’s, to diabetes, to cancer and chemotherapy, to eating disorders, to fibromyalgia — there is no tool that can [...]

Filed under: Health at Every Size | 126 Comments »

Here’s a sobering story in the NYT about a man who almost missed the signs of a heart attack until he remembered reading about the suddenness of the late Tim Russert’s death. Fortunately, the author made it to the hospital in time to get effective medical attention — and he found that he’s not the [...]

Filed under: Fat, Health at Every Size, Other Stuff We Read, Sweet Machine | 109 Comments »

So, the headline of this AP article is okay: “Europe plans free fruit, veggies for school kids.” Nothing wrong with that — in fact, I think it’s a swell idea. But you do know what’s coming next, right?
An estimated 22 million children in the 27-nation bloc of nearly 500 million people are overweight because of [...]

Filed under: Exercise, Fat, Food, Health at Every Size, Media | 98 Comments »

Dearest Aunt Fattie,
I was recently excited to stumble across an online dating site which includes a body shape descriptor - I prefer larger guys and want both my own size and my preference in men to be stated up front. Not long after signing up, I found a cute, sweet-seeming fat dude who shared [...]

Filed under: Ask Aunt Fattie, Fat, Health at Every Size, Self-Image | 25 Comments »

I just got this press release yesterday (article abstract here):
Piscataway, N.J. – June 2, 2008 – A major review in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice reveals that research indicates people who are obese may be more likely to become depressed, and people who are depressed may be more likely to become obese.To understand the potential [...]

Filed under: Fat, Fillyjonk, Health at Every Size, No Shit Sherlock | 109 Comments »

Hey, it’s International No Diet Day! Of course, we strive to make EVERY day No Diet Day, but if you’ve been teetering on the edge, today is the day to try it out for 24 hours and see how you function when you make peace with food. Or maybe it’s time to spread the [...]

Filed under: Dieting/WLS, Fat, Fillyjonk, Health at Every Size | 115 Comments »

Dear Aunt Fattie,

I’ve been fairly thin my entire adult life - between 120 and 130 pounds (I am 5′ 6″) from age 20 until age 34. Then I met my husband, and because we both love food, we threw caution to the wind and ate whatever we wanted for 6 months, and I gained [...]

Filed under: Ask Aunt Fattie, Fat, Health at Every Size, Self-Image | 139 Comments »

Dear Aunt Fattie,
I have a friend who is heavier than I am, and insists that there’s no point for HER to go to a doctor, because a doctor won’t help her, and she’ll just be wasting the copays to consult with them. She says that it makes sense for ME to go to doctors and [...]

Filed under: Ask Aunt Fattie, Fat, Health at Every Size | 47 Comments »

All right, I’m way late in getting to the Yale study on discrimination that everybody was talking about last week, but it’s still worth a mention.
The hook most media outlets have been using is “weight discrimination is more common than racial discrimination,” which irritates me, because it plays into the “fat is the [...]

Filed under: Fat, Health at Every Size, Media | 119 Comments »